The Future Called. It Wants Its Data Center Back

You've got to hand it to the folks Swedish ISP Bahnhof. They've got style. A few months back we wrote about their Pionen data center. Nestled in a former nuclear bunker just south of Stockholm, it has plants, cool glass conference rooms and waterfalls, inspired by science-fiction classics such as Silent Running.

Now they've started construction on a futuristic modular data center, designed by a Bahnhof sister company called MDC Stockholm. The idea is to take tank-quality steel and build out special data-center containers that can be quickly added stacked and linked using an inflatable command module. The module is built by Lindstrand Technologies — the same company that built the parachute used by the ill-fated Beagle 2 Mars mission.

"It's very expensive to build a data center, and you always always end up with a lot of empty space before you have any clients," says Jon Karlung, Bahnhof's CEO. With a modular data center, you can expand as you need more space rather than building out a massive complex and waiting to fill your capacity. He says that his designers again took a few pages from sci-fi classics such as Space 1999 and Star Trek.

Above:

A vision of the Bahnhof containers being flown around in the future.

Image: MDC Stockholm.

A fully completed Bahnhof modular data center will house 12 modules, including a power module and a cooling module. These are the same size as the standard 40-foot containers you see being hauled on ships, trains and trucks, but Karlung says that on the inside, they're configured to hold more servers.

Bahnoff envisioned these modular data centers a few years back and, after some delays, is finally getting around to building the first one.

Image: MDC Stockholm.

A Jan. 9 photo of the Bahnhof data center under construction. Karlung hopes to start accepting his first clients in June.

Photo: Bahnhof

The inflatable command module serves as the common office and storage space for the data centers.

Photo: Bahnhof

An artist's conception of the inside of a command module. Karlung is certain that Google got its Storm Trooper Easter egg idea from him.

Image: MDC Stockholm.

A look at the command module before inflation. Karlung wants to surround this data center outside of Stockholm with red scoria, a dark lava rock that scientists have told him is the closest thing to Martian dirt you can find on earth.

Photo: Bahnof/Roger Schederin

The command module attached to a data center container before it's inflated.

Photo: Bahnof/Roger Schederin

The 800-pound doors inside Bahnhof's modular data center use a pneumatic system to open and shut. That isn't just easier on the humans who have to use them; it also saves space. But most importantly, it allows the doors a satisfying pneumatic ssssswish sound when they are used. That's very Space: 1999.

Photo: Bahnhof/Roger Schederin

An artist's conception of a city of modular data centers. Presumably this is after our robot overlords seize power and turn all available green space into modular data centers.